Lisa's Letters from La La Land: A Ghost of a chance...

Today was a day where we were either going on a ghost tour or to a ghost town… given that I am a bit sensitive to actually bumping into the real thing, I chose to go Wild Wild West at Knotts Berry Farm.

Having already eaten the famous chicken dinner that started the growth of this park, other than it being a ghost town theme and there were roller coasters, I didn’t really have much idea of what this park was about. (Despite Sandie having given us all reams of info to study up on before we left… but me being one of those ‘discover it as you go’ kinds of people, I chose to just glance through the pages and takes my chances on the ground. )

Although, I was soon to learn, being on the ground is the LAST thing that you are meant to be doing in this particular park. Actually, apart from a tiny handful of rides, ALL of them are coasters of varying degree of skidmark possibilities.

One of them in fact, is classified amongst the scariest in the world – and you guessed it, nope, that one wasn’t for me.

Walking into the park, the immersion into the wild wild west is actually pretty good – if you disregard their fake spider webs all over the place for Halloween. We 4 hapless adrenalin junkies soon felt a little like we’d been in that DeLorean back to the future and were just a few spur jingles away from a gunfight at dawn.

I’m thinking though, that by the time we hit this park, I was well on my way to being roller coaster-ed out because I only went on half a dozen of them, and only one of the truly terrifying ones. Which I was hoarse by the end of.

None the less, the other girls picked up my slack, with both Sandie and Jacq going on the freaky ‘straight up and straight down’ one that took all day for them to muster up the stuff to go on ( I will admit right here, I never even considered it).

By brunch we’d ridden the pony express – both the lurchy roller coaster version that almost crushed your vertebrae when it stopped on a dime and the one with real ponies that was hot and squishy ( and we thank you lord for the invention of the motor vehicle and air con) , and were sitting in a diner with all its shiny chrome chairs and seats with puffy red vinyl upholstery ordering a 60’s style burgers and malts and all of us lusting after the chips with cheese and bacon melted on top that only one of us had the foresight to order.

Putting a quarter into the little push button juke box right there on our table was a treat, until we realised that we weren’t doing it right and nothing ever played. I remember almost identical ones in the little takeaway shops in Melbourne back in the 80’s – but those ones worked, and I DID order the chips back then.

Then it was on to the Galloping Goose, a train/bus thingy that is a darn-tootin’ authentic ve-hicle once used in the outback a bit like a train. Again, felt a lot like a scene in Back to the Future, but was a fun bit of nostalgia with a token outlaw holding up the train briefly for the hell of it. We did see another ‘gun fight’ down the main street later on too.

After a bit of shopping in the blissful air conditioning, and a drink in the saloon – as you do – it was back into the coasters for another round.

As we left the park mid afternoon we got our first glimpse of Snoopy, who is the mascot for this park, and after photos and hugs it was back to the hotel for a break before dinner with another dressed up doag – Goofy.

So our gathering of travellers headed over to the Disneyland Hotel where we had tickets to dine at Goofy’s kitchen and what a hoot that was.

As a group, we all crammed into the photo-op spot and got a few shots with the Goofster himself, which oddly, was the only time we saw him, so one can only assume he was busy in the kitchen .

The food was buffet style with a heavy leaning towards ‘family foods’ but was delish just the same, given that I have the palate of a 10 year old ( I’ve been told) and we spent the evening going backwards and forwards trying a gazillion taste sensations with intermittent visits from the likes of Alice in Wonderland, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Chip and possibly more that I’m forgetting.

Our server was a hoot and made the night a great fun experience, but I’m sure he was wondering what he struck with 14 Aussies and one lone American to handle.

We rolled out of Goofy’s Kitchen lamenting the fact that we simply could NOT fit in every single dessert offering and scattered into the wonderland of shops that is Downtown Disney.

Most of us shopped fairly late and then it was back to the hotel for some much needed shut eye before another HUGE day on the morrow.